S7 E6 The Al Smith Dinner
by JDPostEpisodeChallenge
Summary: by Supernatural Mondler


"We never finished talking before."

Josh's head shot up at the voice coming from the doorway. Donna smiled hesitantly and Josh put down the notes he was looking over.

"What's left to talk about?" It came out a little more harshly than Josh intended. He couldn't help it, really. All the pain he'd felt when she left, the hopelessness every time they'd run into each other during the primaries and he'd had to pretend it wasn't killing him inside to see her face, the guilt when he'd had to turn her away after the convention, and the emptiness of every moment spent without her had turned him bitter.

"Josh, please don't do this," Donna pleaded. She crossed the room to sit next to him on the bed, but Josh got right back up and moved to stand next to the table. He folded his arms as he looked back at her, wondering when everything had gone so wrong.

They had been so many things in the almost decade they had known each other, had experienced every emotional imaginable together, but this…this _awkwardness_ that had haunted their every interaction for longer than Josh cared to think about, this was new, and Josh absolutely hated it and what's worse, he had no idea how to get rid of it.

Do what?" he chuckled mirthlessly. "What could I possibly be doing that makes this any worse than it already is?"

"You're upset, I understand that, but I—"

"You what?" Josh snapped. "You're sorry? I think it's a little late for that."

"That's not what I was going to say," Donna argued.

"What, then?"

"I'm just saying, you aren't even trying to see my perspective," she explained.

"Donna, I can promise you, I spent _weeks_ trying to see your perspective," Josh responded. "And then…" he swallowed, "then I'd see the space in my closet where your stuff used to be, and I stopped caring."

"Josh…"

"You just _left_ ," Josh whispered. "I don't even care that you quit, we could have worked around that, you know? As long as there was still an _us_. But then I went home that night and all your stuff was gone from there too. Not even a note! You just disappeared from my entire _life_ without a word. And there's nothing you can say that's going to change that."

"You're right."

Josh paused. "What?"

"You're right," Donna repeated. "I shouldn't have packed up and left like that, it wasn't fair to you, and I _am_ sorry for that. But it was what I needed at the time, a clean break."

"So it was personal, then?" Josh asked. "You didn't want to leave the job, you wanted to leave me?"

"No, of course it wasn't like that!" Donna exclaimed. "I wouldn't have left you if I had thought I had a choice, but the job was so entangled in _us_ I just couldn't see keeping one without the other. Not at first, at least. We needed to be separate for a while. But that doesn't excuse me packing up and leaving without talking to you the way I did."

"I had no idea what I had done," Josh admitted quietly. "I didn't…when you left the office that day I thought we could talk at home, or I would have followed you out. I hated the way we left things. When I got home and all your stuff was gone…"

He never heard from her after she left the office for the last time, and it took Josh days before he realized that they were really over. Nearly two years they had been together at that point, and he struggled to accept that he wouldn't hear from her again, that after all they had been through, she hadn't even had the courtesy to end their personal relationship before she disappeared. She had just gone, and then Will told him she had gone up to New Hampshire and only then had Josh allowed himself to come to terms with what a part of him had already known.

"I hadn't moved out of my apartment yet," she reminded him. "You could have come to find me."

"I thought you had made it pretty clear that you wanted nothing to do with me," Josh countered. "And I think a part of me hoped that you would come back. I'd walk in to work the next day and you'd be sitting at your desk, or you'd be waiting for me at my apartment like you used to do sometimes when I had to work late. I knew you were upset with me, but I didn't know what I had done to hurt you so badly that you would cut me out like that, and I didn't want to do it again, so yeah, I just let you go, and maybe that was stupid, but what would you have done in my position?"

"I already said I shouldn't have left like that Josh, okay? I don't know what else you want from me," Donna snapped.

" _I_ don't want anything, _you're_ the one who came in here wanting to talk, so this is me talking," Josh huffed. "Still want to talk?"

"So you're not capable of being adult about this?"

"Donna, I honestly don't know what you want me to say," Josh threw his hands up. "Lou already hired you, and I'm not so much of an asshole that I'm going to deny you professional opportunities just 'cause you dumped me once upon a time, so you don't have to worry about working together—"

"I'm not worried about that. _God_ , Josh, you know I know you better than that," Donna protested.

"So—"

"I miss you," she blurted, and Josh didn't even realize he had started pacing until he froze in his tracks.

"You…"

"I miss you," she repeated. "And I miss us, and I know things can't just go back to the way they were, but I hate how distant we've been for the past few months and the only way we can even begin to fix that is if we talk, so that's what I'm doing. I just…miss you." She finished with a shrug and looked up at him sadly and Josh's heart constricted painfully. He missed her every day, of course he did, and these months without her had hurt in ways he couldn't even begin to explain.

"I never stopped loving you," Josh said suddenly, and Donna flinched like he had shocked her. "Every day, even when I wanted to hate you for leaving me, I couldn't, because I loved you. And I was never angry, I was hurt, because I never imagined my life without you, and then suddenly that's what I had, and I didn't know what to do with myself after that. So…yeah," he trailed off, looking anywhere but at Donna.

He hadn't meant to say any of that, but every word was true. He couldn't trust her after all they'd been through, not like he had before, anyways, yet he had just exposed to her thoughts that he himself hadn't even fully processed until then. As far as Josh was concerned, remaining distant from his feelings had been the only way he could possibly cope with being around her, and already after just a few hours he had laid them out for her to see and stomp on all over again if she wanted. He hated himself in that moment, hated that no matter what, at the end of the day he couldn't lie to her; she was the one person with whom he had always been his truest self, and apparently even after the excruciating pain he had experienced in the months without her he was powerless to change that.

"Josh, come here," she said softly, as if sensing his inner frustration. She slid over to make room next to her on the bed amongst the papers and folders left there by various campaign staff throughout the day. With a sigh, Josh complied, but maintained as much distance as possible in the limited space. Donna didn't seem to mind as she made no move to close the gap. "I never stopped loving you either," she admitted, and now it was Josh's turn to look up in surprise. "Even when I hated you, or when I tried to be angry—"

"So like three hours ago?" Josh interrupted.

"I never stopped loving you," she finished. "And I know that's not enough to fix everything right now, but you have to know that."

"I wish we'd had this conversation six months ago," Josh admitted.

"Me too," Donna agreed.

"But we didn't."

"No, we didn't."

They were both quiet for a few moments as Josh contemplated how to proceed. She was right, obviously they couldn't just pretend their separation hadn't happened and pick up where they left off. Honestly, Josh wasn't even sure where exactly they had left off anyways. He knew things had changed between them when she came back from Gaza, that for whatever reason what had once been simple had become strained, and while Josh had tried to act as though nothing was wrong, even back then he'd had the sense that everything was about to fall apart. Maybe Donna leaving had just sped up the process, or maybe it had saved them from a bigger blow-up, weeks down the road.

Either way, they were probably about four conversations behind at this point, closer to strangers than the lovers they had once been, and Josh ached with the thought that they might never make it back there.

"It's not…it's not going to be a problem, right? Working together?" Josh asked suddenly, the realization that their half-confessions might have only served to compound the awkwardness that already marred their interactions, and now that she was back on his staff... "Like, if we can't…"

"No, of course not!" Donna exclaimed. "We know how to be professional, we did it for years. Seriously, Josh, I wouldn't have come back if I thought we couldn't work together again."

"You said you think I'm uncomfortable with you in a position of authority," Josh accused wearily. "If you really think—"

"No, Josh, no, of course not!" Donna protested. "I said…I know I've said some awful things—"

"Because it was never about that," Josh interrupted. "I just wanted you with me. I never…I honestly never thought of you as less than anyone else we worked with, or as less than me, I just didn't want to let you go."

"I know that, Josh. I promise I know that," Donna responded. "But you _needed_ to let me go. I needed to do something for myself, just for a while, something to prove that I'm good, that I don't need to rely on you for my job for the rest of my life. And I did that. I _am_ good. But…"

"But?"

"I'm so much better with you," she finished, looking down at their hands. Josh noticed that while their bodies remained distant, their hands had crept closer together on the bed between them, almost touching now, and he yearned to reach out to her.

"I'm better with you too," Josh said softly. "I don't think that would come as a surprise to anyone, though."

"You seem to be doing okay," she smiled sadly, and Josh missed her so much at that moment it physically hurt.

 _I'm not_ , Josh wanted to argue. _I haven't been okay since you left me_. Instead he just shrugged.

"I guess," he allowed. "But I would have rather done this with you from the beginning. You really do make me better, Donna."

"That could have been fun," Donna agreed, smiling. "Sleeping on hotel room couches because we can't all afford our own on the original campaign budget, running on so little sleep we want to kill each other, and of course, my personal favorite, putting up with your cranky ass when someone doesn't give you your way."

"Hey, you love my cranky ass," Josh protested, then looked away sheepishly when he realized his word choice might not have been the best given the circumstances.

But Donna didn't even flinch, just rolled her eyes and responded, "Yeah, of course I do."

"Donna…"

"I know it might be too late now," she interrupted. "I know I said some things I shouldn't have and didn't say some things I needed to and we came so close to fizzling out once before. But I'm here now, and you're here, and being with you makes more sense than anything else in the world. We bring out the best in each other. If you want to keep things professional going forward, I understand. But if you wanted to, y'know…try _us_ again? I'd…I'd like to try."

"Donna, are you asking me out?" Josh smiled in amusement at watching her struggle. Usually he was the one who struggled with words, and he felt comforted to know that this—being near each other again, the mere thought of being _with_ each other again—was just as nerve-wracking for her as it was for him.

"Technically you asked me out like two years ago," she corrected. "I'm…I don't know, re-asking you out maybe?"

"We can't just pick up where we left off," Josh echoed his thoughts from earlier. "It's not going to be that easy."

"No, of course not," Donna agreed. "I don't think I would even want to. We were…I don't think we were in the best place when I…left…anyways. We need to start at the beginning, spend some time together outside of work."

"And when do you suggest we do that?" Josh asked, because while he wholeheartedly agreed with everything she said, these days 'outside of work' for him was usually the three or four hours each night he spent sleeping, and while personally he would give those hours up in a heartbeat to be with her (something that, given everything they had been through, should probably worry him at least a little bit), he figured Donna, Leo, the congressman, and his mom would all have something to say about that. He really would have no shortage of people mothering him at any given moment now.

"We could start with dinner," she suggested. "Now?"

Josh raised his eyebrows. "It's like ten pm," he pointed out.

"And have you eaten dinner yet?"

"Well…no," Josh conceded.

"There you go then," Donna replied smugly, because of course she would know that and Josh only missed her even more at that moment, even though she was sitting right there. Josh usually didn't even realize when he skipped meals or stayed all night at the office unless someone pointed it out to him, especially if he was busy. He absently wondered just how many meals he had missed over the past few months while he was running the wildest campaign he had ever been a part of, without Donna around to keep him on something even vaguely classified as a schedule. It was probably best not to think about that too much, or to share that particular thought with her.

Donna had already stood up and Josh rose to match her. They faced each other, but neither of them did or said anything at first.

"Ready?" she eventually asked. "I doubt the café downstairs is still open, but there's got to be something open within a few blocks from here."

"Yeah, just…one sec." As he finished speaking, Josh reached out to her and she came willingly—instinctively—into his arms and finally, _finally_ he was holding her again and nothing had felt so right since before she had walked out of his life last November. He felt her sigh as her arms wrapped around his waist and he knew she felt the same way. He allowed himself to breathe her in, the familiar scent that he had almost forgotten in its absence was his home once again, and Josh knew he was completely screwed. But maybe, that could be a good thing this time. Maybe this was just what they needed: a fresh start. A chance to revitalize their relationship in a new environment, the stress of an underdog campaign sending them back to their earliest days of getting to know each other. They could spend their time talking over late dinners and polling data, falling asleep on each other's shoulder when the campaign jet takes off before the sun rises, sharing the hopes and fears that they dare not share with anyone else because at the end of the day, there's no one that put him at ease like Donna.

No, they couldn't just pick up where they left off, but they could have another shot at their beginning, and Josh liked the sound of that even better.

"Okay," he finally whispered, dropping his arms and taking a step back. "Now I'm ready."


End file.
